Customer Rating: 

OK, so I have read more boring books than this, but it's definitely up there amongst the contenders. I thought this might give me some insights into the history of banking collapses and sovereign debt default, have some interesting anecdotes and be generally educational, but I have to say, this is *just* for financial geeks. It takes 50 pages just to lay out the methodology and define terms ! Ouch. Maybe a great read for a macroeconomic Nobel laureate or something looking for a research topic, but otherwise, forget it. If you want to find out what sovereign debt default looks like, you are better watching riots in Athens on the TV...

Customer Rating: 

This book provides an excellent collection of empirical observations on crises, banking as well as debt crises. For first time researchers in this field, it gives a comprehensive review of relevant literature and snapshot of empirics. For more experienced researchers, it is a good companion book.

Customer Rating: 

It's a fairly dry read, though not overly technical. With the exception of the Great Depression, it doesn't drill too far into any particular prior crisis, but then if it had, it would have been 30,000 pages instead of 300.

Three types of crises are identified - external debt, domestic debt, and banking crises. Of the three, banking crises are identified to be the worst.

Common denominators leading up to banking crises include liberalization of laws, high capital mobility, and large capital inflow. We had all of those leading up to the current crisis. It furthermore points out that the effects of banking crises include a sharp reduction in tax intake, bailouts, stimulus, and large deficits - we've also had all of those.

Two things in particular that should make everyone take notice of this work - the authors find that typically, countries do NOT grow out of their debts, and since the wide-scale introduction of fiat currencies, inflation has been the weapon of choice in this fight. Since the average banking crisis lead to a debt increase of 86% - which is not out of line with what we can expect at the end of the current - and since we live in a society dominated by fiat currencies, should we expect inflation?

However, all throughout the book, I just couldn't help myself thinking that this time really IS different. With the exception of the Great Depression, not once has a crisis hit with anywhere near the kind of global impact we currently experience. And since most of the issues still persist - deficits are worse than ever, banks are still in deep trouble, and tax revenue continues to drop - I can't come to any other conclusion that this crisis will be felt for a long time to come.

Definitely worth a read.

Customer Rating: 

The authors have written a monster of a refence book which spans 800 years of financial history. It's somewhat galling to see Brown/Darling on TV declaring "this time is different", and "we're in uncharted waters, we've not been here before", only to read just how many times we HAVE been here before. Wasn't it Einstein who said that the definition of stupidity is making the same mistake again and again?

I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It's not a light bedtime read but is accessible and more than readable, and more's the point, you can dip in to whatever chapter is relevant for your enquiry. There are swathes of tables and reference charts, and the later chapters deal with the current crisis - which we learn is not new (though the debt mountain is the greatest on record).

I would suggest it helps to have a modicum of understanding of world finance, this is not a book for beginners (for that go to "Conspiracy of the Rich" by Robert Kiyosaki - possibly the best there is to really get inside what's going on in the world of finance and highly readable), but for those already engaged in this area, "This Time is Different" is essential.

Customer Rating: 

This is a great book to keep once you've finished reading, so it's on the shelf ready with the stats to debunk the next new big thing.